December, 09 2010, 02:05pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
* Haiti Elections * Nobel Peace Prize Corrupted?
WASHINGTON
ALEX MAIN, via Dan Beeton
Policy analyst with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Main is just back from Haiti. See the Center's blog on Haiti
The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded on Friday. Author of the new book The Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel Really Wanted, Heffermehl argues that the Nobel committee has violated the terms of Alfred Nobel's will, which established the prize. He states that for decades, the parties in the Norwegian parliament have misused the Nobel committee seats to reward party veterans lacking insight in the peace ideas that Nobel wished to support. Heffermehl writes that over half of the awards since 1946 have not conformed with the intention of Nobel, who wished to change the international system in order to end wars and armaments.
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
LATEST NEWS
'Disgusting': Israeli Minister Rebuked for 'Hamas ❤︎ Biden' Post
"When Biden, far too late, pushes back just a little, this is how the far right responds," said one analyst. "There is no appeasing these murderous fanatics."
May 09, 2024
Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir was sharply condemned on Thursday for lashing out at U.S. President Joe Biden after the American leader threatened to withhold weapons if Israel scales up its ongoing assault on Rafah in the Gaza Strip.
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue the war with or without outside assistance, Ben-Gvir—who rose to his current post despite being convicted of incitement to racism and supporting an anti-Arab group that Israel classifies as a terrorist organization—took aim at the U.S. president on social media, writing, "Hamas ❤︎ Biden."
Hamas—which Ben-Gvir and Biden's governments consider a terrorist group—has governed Gaza for nearly two decades and led the October 7 attack that sparked Israel's retaliatory and "plausibly" genocidal war on the Palestinian enclave. In just seven months, Israeli forces have killed at least 34,904 Palestinians there, wounded another 78,514, destroyed civilian infrastructure, and repeatedly displaced survivors.
Once Biden threatened to cut off weapons to Israel on Wednesday, reporter Emma Vigeland predicted responses along the lines of, "Biden is an antisemite who loves Hamas." After Ben-Gvir's post on X, formerly Twitter, she said, "Update: This is not even a parody tweet anymore."
Journalist Mehdi Hasan also seemed unsurprised by the news, writing: "Yep, now Biden is Hamas too. Can't make this stuff up."
Biden has faced growing backlash from critics of the war for not already cutting off U.S. arms to Israel—particularly given that he previously called an attack on Rafah a "red line," which didn't stop Israeli tanks and warplanes from targeting the city overwhelmed by refugees this week.
Some of the responses to Ben-Gvir's post stressed the U.S. president's strident support for the Israeli war since October.
"Biden has staked a good chunk of his reelection chances on his absolute support for Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza," noted foreign policy analyst and writer Mitchell Plitnick. "Israel has responded by continually pushing the envelope, and when Biden, far too late, pushes back just a little, this is how the far right responds. There is no appeasing these murderous fanatics."
Attorney Aaron Regunberg similarly said that "Israel's national security minister posted this because Biden, who's (disastrously) done everything the Israeli government's asked of him, took the first step towards a more rational policy. This is not how a [government] that wants to maintain a 'special relationship' with the U.S. acts."
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) pointed out that "this disgusting tweet comes from Israel's extremist national security minister, who was convicted by an Israeli court of racist incitement and supporting terrorism."
"This is the government waging war against the entire Palestinian people. We cannot be complicit in Ben-Gvir's war," added Sanders, who also spoke on the Senate floor and put out a statement about Rafah.
"President Biden is right," Sanders said in the statement. "The United States cannot continue to provide more bombs and artillery shells to support Netanyahu's disastrous and inhumane war policies."
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'Indomitable' Gaza Journalist Bisan Owda Awarded Peabody for War Coverage
"We rise simply to document the genocide happening to our people," said the Palestinian reporter who dedicated her award to protesters around the world speaking out against Israel's military assault.
May 09, 2024
"It's Bisan from Gaza and I'm still alive."
The line has become familiar to social media users and viewers of the Al Jazeera Media Network's show of the same name, hosted by Palestinian journalist and activist Bisan Owda. On Thursday the show was lauded by the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors as it awarded Owda one of journalism's highest honors.
"Despite a lack of clean water and the increasing scarcity of food, she draws on her indomitable spirit to keep the world informed," said the board. "For showing bravery and persistence in the midst of imminent danger, and for carrying a heavy journalistic burden as the entire world looks on, It's Bisan from Gaza and I'm Still Alive is honored with a Peabody Award."
Since Owda first broadcast from her bombarded home of Gaza in early November, less than a month into the Israeli onslaught that has now killed at least 34,904 Palestinians, she has given viewers a glimpse into how civilians across the enclave are impacted by air and ground attacks.
Her first broadcast—opening with the words: "Good morning, everyone. This is Bisan from Gaza. I'm smiling because I'm alive"—documented the makeshift tent encampment Owda was living in at Al-Shifa Hospital, after fleeing her home in Beit Hanoun with her family.
Since then Owda has interviewed her neighbors and documented the spread of disease at overcrowded shelters; the plight of families forced to leave northern Gaza due to Israel's total blockade on aid, pushing them toward starvation; and her family's experience marking Ramadan "in the rubble" left by relentless Israeli airstrikes.
On Thursday, Save the Children International featured Owda's reporting on Israel's takeover of the Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border as it invaded the city of Rafah this week.
"No people can evacuate to a safe place, no humanitarian aid trucks entering," she said in the video. "Now I am in the middle of Rafah, and these people behind me are trying to gather their stuff. Their mattresses, some food. And they're taking now their stuff again to be displaced again after living [here] for months."
The situation in #Gaza is devastating.
The takeover by Israeli forces of the #Rafah crossing means no aid can enter.
Due to the rise in violence & evacuation orders, families are fleeing again, despite there being nowhere safe to go.
Bisan reports from Rafah👇#CeasefireNOW pic.twitter.com/5vISDNweOl
— Save the Children International (@save_children) May 9, 2024
Accepting the Peabody, Owda said she and other journalists in Gaza "rise simply to document the genocide happening to our people."
"The victory of the Palestinian cause was never just for Palestinians," she said. "It is rather a victory for humanity."
She dedicated the award to people around the world who are helping to defeat "one of the [Israeli] occupation's strongest tools": dividing people "so we can never support one another."
"I dedicate this award to all the college students who are protesting," she said. "To all the people who took to the streets. To all the people at home who are participating in boycotts. To all the people worldwide, regardless of their religion, color, and ethnicity. Regardless of what makes them different, they're united in one mission: in their demands for a free Palestine. You deserve this award. And so do we."
Bisan Owda has just won one of broadcast journalism’s highest honors – the Peabody Award – for her work with AJ+.
Bisan is currently facing intense Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the occupied Gaza Strip. This is her message to the world: pic.twitter.com/rFTV7jjBIN
— AJ+ (@ajplus) May 9, 2024
"And one day, this genocide will end," she continued. "And Palestine will be free. And we will welcome you here on Gazan soil. All of you... Thank you so much for this award and for always supporting us, standing by us, and for continuing to do so until we reach our demands: an end to the genocide, a cease-fire, and a free Palestine."
Tony Karon, editorial lead at AJ+, which has collaborated with Owda since Israel's onslaught began, applauded Owda's "heroic storytelling."
"We strive to tell the human story from where the missiles land, to elevate the human spirit and the hope that it brings for better days, to shine a light on places and stories those in power would rather keep shrouded in darkness," he said.
Zahira Jaher, a professor at University of Sussex in the U.K., said Owda and other journalists in Gaza "are rewriting how reporting is done... She is the future of Palestine."
The award was announced days after the Pulitzer Prize Board awarded a "special citation" for all journalists covering Israel's attack on Gaza—without giving recognition to those who are reporting from the frontlines, more than 100 of whom have been killed by Israeli forces.
"No one deserves this award more than Bisan, who is risking her life to ensure that the world bears witness to Israel's atrocities," said writer and foreign policy analyst Tariq Kenney-Shawa. "But no award will bring back the over 100 Palestinian journalists Israel has killed over the last seven months."
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UNICEF Warns Area Israel Pushing Rafah Residents to Is 'Not Safe'
"It is a narrow strip of beach on the coast that lacks the basic infrastructure—like toilets and running water—needed to sustain the population," said the agency chief.
May 09, 2024
As Israel's tanks and warplanes continued attacking eastern Rafah on Thursday amid fears of a full-scale invasion, United Nations leaders warned that the area to which Israeli forces are directing Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip city is unsafe.
The Israel Defense Forces this week has
circulated a map and claimed that "the IDF has expanded the humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi to accommodate the increased levels of aid flowing into Gaza. This expanded humanitarian area includes field hospitals, tents, and increased amounts of food, water, medication, and additional supplies."
However, in an interview published Wednesday, Tess Ingram of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
said that "the area that they're being directed to evacuate to is not safe. It's not safe because there aren't the services there to meet their basic needs, water, toilets, shelter."
"But it's also not safe because we know that that area has been subject to strikes despite being a so-called safe zone. So we're really concerned about that impact of a ground offensive on one of the most densely populated areas in the world," she told The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill.
"Israel's latest evacuation orders and their ground operations will bring more death and displacement."
Rafah was home to about a quarter-million people before October 7, but since Israel launched what the International Court of Justice has
called a "plausibly" genocidal assault on Gaza—killing at least 34,904 Palestinians and wounding another 78,514 as of Thursday—the city's population has swelled to over 1.4 million.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell
said last week that a major military operation against the crowded city "would bring catastrophe on top of catastrophe" for the young people there, explaining that "nearly all of the some 600,000 children now crammed into Rafah are either injured, sick, malnourished, traumatized, or living with disabilities."
Noting that "many of them have been displaced multiple times already," Ingram, who recently returned from Gaza, similarly told Scahill that "they're exhausted, traumatized, sick, hungry, and their ability to safely evacuate is limited."
Despite warnings from humanitarian leaders and the U.S. government—which has continued to arm the IDF throughout the war—Israeli forces attacked Rafah this week and seized control of the border crossing with Egypt, further restricting aid delivery.
U.S. President Joe Biden previously called attacking Rafah a "red line." While criticizing the IDF assault on the city Wednesday, the American leader was accused of "moving the goal post" because he merely threatened to cut off arms if Israel pursued a major invasion, rather than stopping the flow of arms immediately.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear on Thursday that he has no intention of backing down, saying in a video message in Hebrew that "if we are forced to stand alone, we will stand alone."
Russell said in a statement Thursday that "the intensification of military operations in the Rafah area and the closure of key border crossings into southern Gaza have severed our access to fuel, threatening to grind humanitarian operations to a halt."
According to the UNICEF chief:
If the Kerem Shalom and Rafah crossings are not reopened to fuel and humanitarian supplies, the consequences will be felt almost immediately: Life support services for premature babies will lose power; children and families will become dehydrated or consume dangerous water; sewage will overflow and spread disease further. Simply put, lost time will soon become lost lives.
I strongly urge the relevant authorities to provide humanitarian actors with actionable measures and concrete assurances to facilitate safe and secure movement of humanitarian cargo, via all routes, into and within the Gaza Strip.
"I am also deeply concerned about the movement of civilians in Gaza to unsafe areas," Russell continued. "In response to evacuation orders in eastern Rafah, at least 80,000 people have reportedly fled the area, with many seeking shelter in Al-Mawasi and among the ruins of Khan Younis. We have been warning for months that Al-Mawasi is not a safe option. It is a narrow strip of beach on the coast that lacks the basic infrastructure—like toilets and running water—needed to sustain the population."
Plus, as Scott Anderson, deputy director of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, toldPolitico on Wednesday, "there's already 450,000 people in that general area. It is crowded."
Anderson also warned about dwindling supplies, saying that "we're down to no fuel. We're basically out. We've kept enough to meet the minimum security standards we have to meet for the U.N. so we can continue to stay here. But we're down to that level. Some hospitals will start shutting down their generators in three days if we don't get fuel in."
Martin Griffiths, the U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, stressed in a Thursday statement that "civilians must be protected and have their basic needs met, whether they move or stay."
While warning that "Israel's latest evacuation orders and their ground operations will bring more death and displacement," Griffiths also said that "we remain committed to providing aid to people, regardless of where they are."
"The decisions that are made today and their consequences in human suffering will be remembered by the generation that follows us," he concluded. "Let us be ready for their reproaches."
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